Tuesday 23 August 2011

Disclaimer!

If, during any time, I upset anyone, or have upset anyone by what I have written, I unreservedly apologise!  I think I can be quite radical and, by some standards, controversial too; but in this I am only trying to be honest, rather than nice.  I am not being controversial for controversy's sake, just trying to explore themes in as truthful a way as possible.



You may have noticed, if you have read a few of my posts, that I am a little obsessed with the English Class system!  I make no apologies for writing about this as, for some reason, it seems to be one of the few contentious issues in English life that few people, if anyone really, will tackle, talk about or debate in any kind of genuine fashion.  I don't know why this is; perhaps for some people it's too near the knuckle, and from my point of view perhaps this worldly system that creates winners and losers, people who are seen as socially acceptable and other people who are not seen as socially acceptable, is still a way of grading English people at this present time.


 
Coming from the background I do, I feel that as a Christian I must at times write about this painful issue for the many people who have felt they were not included or were passed over in some way because of this system. In the final analysis, whether it's class in Britain, or racism in America, or religious intolerance in some countries or even blatant sexism anywhere, we as Christians should be prepared to look honestly at the societies we live in, and also the world at large, and be prepared in our own small way to challenge such prejudice and injustice where we find it; it's as simple as that. 

3 comments:

  1. Hi TC - I recently upset some people I work with due to a few comments I made online. It happens mate and all you can be is yourself.

    Social class is about something other than how much money a person has, but it's often forgotten that social mobility is a two way street. People have to be free to fail and squander what they were born with.

    I sometimes see that the more fortunate are often shielded from failure and the consequences of it, which does nobody any good in the long run. Ergo - I'm a republican!!

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  2. Hi Daz; I really appreciate your comment here, as sometimes when we write things that are controversial, we can get paranoid about it in some way. The last thing I would ever want to do is upset someone; like you, I'm not writing for that reason but trying to explore honestly what can be contentious issues in a thoroughly honest way.

    Like any system that creates winners and losers, the Class system at worst is unjust, it's as simple as that; but it's so ingrained in English society, that people see it as a natural outcome of things, when I believe that couldn't be further from the truth; it is shaped and controlled by those who benefit from it, and is perceived in our society to be just the way things are. If we challenge one prejudice like racism, why not any other quite frankly?

    And as you rightly point out, people often at the top of the tree, who often benefit greatly from a skewed system favouring some and not others, are usually shielded from the worst aspects of such a system; in short then, our society can be top-heavy with people who haven't really earned that status, but are there quite simply because they are seen as Upper class or aristocratic or whatever; and that is neither just nor fair. And it has ramifications for all of us; if enough people blithely accept injustice and hypocrisy in one area, they are likely to turn a blind eye to other injustices too. Not a good way to run a supposedly modern democracy! Well, that's my rant for the day!

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  3. A well-earned rant mate - take it easy!!

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